Helen Gahagan Douglas – the original movie star politician

These days they seem even more tired than a cliché – celebrity politicians.

You’ve got second-generation pro wrestling titan Linda McMahon running for public office in Connecticut. You’ve got comedian Al Franken serving in the U.S. Senate from Minnesota, the same state which – speaking of wrestling – once elected Jesse “The Body” Ventura as governor.

Of course, there’s also Arnold Schwarzenegger. And every few months it seems as if whispers surface that movie stars from George Clooney to Alec Baldwin are going to make the leap from the big screen to the political world.

Finally, there’s the former actor who seemed to blaze the trail for onetime movie stars who want to break into politics – Ronald Reagan.

But around the same time young Reagan was making films such as Bedtime for Bonzo, another former actor was making waves in Washington. As a woman entering political life back in the 1940s, she knew a thing or two about being a trailblazer.

And little did she know her future held an infamous showdown with a rising political star named Richard Nixon, and a love affair with yet another congressman with a future named Lyndon Johnson.

Not bad for a Jersey girl whose father was born in Ireland.

Her name was Helen Gahagan Douglas. A newly-published book, The Pink Lady: The Many Lives of Helen Gahagan Douglas (Bloomsbury Press) has resurrected interest in the long, complicated life of this actress-turned-politician.

She was born in New Jersey but raised in Brooklyn. Her father, an engineer, was not exactly interested in artistic pursuits.

Nevertheless, Helen pursued a career on the stage. But she was always cultivating political opinions -- including Irish ones.

As part of an oral history project in the 1970s, Gahagan said this about her days as a schoolgirl, “The one issue that I was passionate about was the independence of Ireland. Absolutely passionate about it.”

The interviewer then asks, “Did you have a lot of other Irish there who were on your side?”

Douglass replied, “No, no, no.”

By the 1920s, Gahagan was a Broadway star. In 1931, she married leading man Melvyn Douglas.

Her only Hollywood role was in the film She, which is about a woman with the power to tame tribes in the wilds of Africa.

It was in 1944 that Douglas became the first woman Democrat elected to the House of Representatives. Not surprisingly, Douglas represented California which, decades later, would elect the likes of Sonny Bono, Reagan and Schwarzenegger to public office.

Douglas was an unabashed liberal who, according to Lyndon Johnson’s most acclaimed biographer Robert Caro, had a love affair with the future president in the 1940s.

It was in 1950 that Douglas chased history and ran for the U.S. Senate seat. She was up against an ambitious fellow congressman named Richard Nixon.

Already, Nixon had learned that whipping up anti-Communist hysteria was a good way to score political points. So, he famously referred to Douglas as the “Pink Lady.” The suggestion was that Douglas may not be a Commie “Red,” but she was very close to it.

Nixon knew what he was doing. He won the election easily.

For what it is worth, Douglas earned a measure of revenge. It is believed that she coined the famous phrase “Tricky Dick,” referring to Nixon.

Memories of the Douglas-Nixon battle did not die easily. When Nixon was embroiled in the Watergate controversy in the 1970s, bumper stickers which read “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Helen Gahagan Douglas” were popular items.

Douglas lived another 30 years before she died in 1980 (yes, the year Reagan was elected).

Next time you hear a celebrity spouting off about politics, and running for office, think about Helen Gahagan Douglas.

You may want to give her credit or blame her for creating this mess. But, at the very least, think of her.

(Tom Deignan will be discussing “Twenty Books Every Irish American Should Read” at the mid-Manhattan branch library, 455 Fifth Avenue, March 11. Contact tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan.)

The Irish Catholic Church's 'Tea Party'

Given the problems he’s faced with these days -- health care, Iraq and now the exodus of Democrats such as Patrick Kennedy and Evan Bayh from the House and Senate -- President Obama probably looks back fondly on the days when the biggest problem in his life was a bunch of angry Irish Catholics at Notre Dame.

Last year, Obama was invited to give the commencement speech at the Catholic university famous for its Fighting Irish sports teams. Some people applauded the invite, since colleges are supposed to be a forum for debate.

Others, however, were outraged.

Ralph McInerney, an Irish American professor at the college, wrote, “Barack Hussein Obama, enabler in chief of abortion, has agreed to speak at the 2009 commencement and to receive an honorary doctorate of law. That abortion and its advocacy violate a primary precept of natural law reinforced by the Catholic Church’s explicit doctrine is a mere bagatelle.

“Wackos of all kinds will kick up a fuss, of course, but their protest will go unnoticed in South Bend. The pell-mell pursuit of warm and fuzzy Catholicism will continue.”

McInerny died last month at the age of 80. He was also a popular novelist who inspired the Father Dowling TV series, starring Tom Bosley, in the 1980s.

It might seem tempting, if a little disrespectful, to see this passing as symbolic -- yet another old school Catholic moving on to what is hoped to be a better place, leaving the church down here slightly more tolerant and open-minded.

But that’s a simple-minded way to see things, even if you disagree with the likes of McInerny. When it comes to religion -- among the Irish and Irish Americans in particular -- things are a lot more complex.

You might even say there is a Tea Party of sorts going on within the American Catholic Church.

For many of us, yes, the abuse scandals and the outdated sexual rules have made the Catholic Church as it exists today a dinosaur. It is slouching towards extinction, and if it doesn’t reform itself, it may stay that way, at least in the U.S.

Liberal Catholics from Susan Sarandon to Kerry Kennedy espouse beliefs similar to this. But there is another wing of Catholics is the U.S. You might call them Tea Party Catholics.

Whatever you think of the current Tea Party wing of the Republican party, we can agree they didn’t throw their hands up in disgust and walk away from the debate. They got angry and they organized.

McInerney was one such Irish Catholic. Tom Monaghan, the Domino’s Pizza founder, who donates millions to conservative Catholic causes, is another.

Patrick Reilly, founder of the Cardinal Newman Society, which promotes “authentic” Catholic college education is still another.

These thinkers don’t agree on everything. But rather than seek the spotlight, they have found solace in medieval philosophy and refuse to believe such a worldview is irrelevant in the 21st century.

When not churning out best-selling mystery books, McInerny founded a magazine called Crisis, which sought reform in the Catholic Church, but not Kennedy-style reform. The church was not intolerant, but too tolerant, McInerny and his followers believed.

I think it is even fair to say these guys would not have a problem if such changes forced, say, half of the Catholic Church’s current members to abandon the faith. This, I think they believe, would be a fair price to pay for spiritual purity.

Such thinkers may not seem popular or glamorous. But they are now so influential that a New York Times Magazine cover story last December reported that their philosophy “has found support among a group of Catholic bishops who have become some of the most persistent critics of President Obama.”

The article continued, “Alarmed at the liberal takeover of Washington and an apparent leadership vacuum among the Christian right, the group had come together to warn the country’s secular powers that the culture wars had not ended. (They) promised resistance to the point of civil disobedience.”

You say you want a revolution? Well, we just might have one. Where it stops, nobody knows.



(Contact Tom Deignan at facebook.com/tomdeignan or tomdeignan@earthlink.net.)

The real problem with stereotypes, Irish or otherwise

British comedian Ricky Gervais caused a bit of trouble a few weeks back when he cracked a joke about body hair, Colin Farrell and alcoholism at the Globes.

It’s worth adding, however, that Gervais was not doing a solo performance. He was very much part of a loud and plentiful chorus.

Last Sunday night I caught a rerun of the Fox sitcom ‘Til Death, starring former Everybody Loves Raymond star Brad Garrett.

In the show Garrett (as best as I can tell) plays some kind of teacher who did not have to go to work because there was an outbreak of head lice.

“Thank God for the Irish,” Garrett quipped.

Then, I caught a Simpsons re-run in which good ol’ Homer was being nagged by Marge. She wanted to make sure Homer attended a special event honoring their daughter Lisa.

But she didn’t just want Homer to show up. She wanted him to show up sober.

“American sober?” Homer responded. “Or Irish sober?”

This all happened the same week an independent movie from a well-known TV producer hit theaters. The movie is entitled White Irish Drinkers.

And in the same month that a Los Angeles Times blogger, mocking the blasphemy laws recently passed in Ireland, wrote, “As my Irish mother would put it, ‘Mother of God! They might as well outlaw alcoholism.’"

Yeesh. What is this, vaudeville circa 1919?

However, let’s not have the same old argument about whether or not these jokes are offensive. True, Farrell reportedly did not look pleased after Gervais’ quip at the Golden Globes. Perhaps a British actor should have known better.

On the other hand, half of Gervais’ joke was based on the premise that the Irish are as hairy as they are alcoholic, which is either absurd or hilarious, and probably a bit of both.

I have not seen the movie White Irish Drinkers, a personal project written and directed by John Gray (a force behind the TV hit The Ghost Whisperer), but it sounds like a gritty, emotional coming-of-age Brooklyn Irish story.

The title may bother you. But the real thing to worry about is when people stop telling distinctly Irish American stories such as this.

A few lame jokes about drink is a small price to pay for us fighting -- not to mention hairy -- Irish.

Another thing people object to is that the Irish are “the only group it’s still okay to make fun of.”

Anyone seen Jersey Shore on MTV? Proud, self-proclaimed Italian American “guidos” are featured on the show.

And guess what? Some Italian Americans hate the show because they feel that it’s the Italians who are the only group left that it is okay to make fun of.

The Jersey Shore cast members, incidentally, are laughing all the way to the bank. Reports suggest they just worked out a new contract worth a cool $10,000 an episode. Obviously, it pays to ridicule yourself!

The worst thing about a debate like this is that it inevitably descends into a shouting match among so-called advocates for the Irish and Italians and African Americans and Jews and other ethnic groups.

People on one side say ethnic jokes are harmless, and people on the other side say, “Not after our traumatic history!” or “Not if our group is the only one that gets made fun on!”

First of all, give a listen to comedians ranging from Kathy Griffin and Stephen Colbert to George Lopez and Howard Stern. Trust me, every ethnic group is adequately mocked.

Chris Rock has joked that if you have money that you want to hide from African American criminals, hide it in a book. Because books “are like kryptonite” to African Americans.

Makes all those Irish drunk jokes seem pretty tame, doesn’t it?

Also, at least one obvious group gets excluded from this debate -- wealthy WASPs!

You can imagine a few of these genteel, privileged folks looking on as the lower classes bicker about what is and isn’t proper to say. You can imagine them shaking their heads and saying, “Maybe grandmum and grandpup were right. Maybe we should never have let any of these people into this great country.”

We don’t need fewer Irish jokes. We need more people mocking these rich, powerful pinheads!

(Contact Tom Deignan at tomdeignan@earthlink.net)

Ireland shares story with U.S. small towns

Drogheda, Co. Louth native Patrick Carr has encountered good fortune and bad on a road which has taken him from Ireland to some of the smallest towns in the U.S.

“I was on the last set of planes…that left Ireland before the Celtic Tiger took off.” With a laugh, Carr adds, “Things got much better when I left. I came of age in Ireland in the 1980s. People talk about recession in Ireland now, but things were much worse (back then).”

As luck would have it, however, while in Ireland, Carr met up with some very pleasant folks from a small town in Iowa. Carr accompanied the Iowans on trips all over Ireland before they returned home.

“They said, ‘You must come to Iowa if you ever get the chance,’” Carr recalled.

“You have to be careful when you invite an Irishman to your home because they may very well take you up on it.”

Indeed, by the time Carr became a sociologist working at Rutgers University, he was hired by the prestigious Macarthur Foundation to study small towns in America. The result is an insightful new book titled "Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What it Means for America" (Beacon).

Carr, as well as his wife, Maria J. Kefalas, called up the friends he had made and said they would not only be coming to visit, but they would, in fact, be moving to Iowa. Carr was looking to study how children came of age in this town, which they call “Ellis,” to protect the anonymity of their subjects.

What they found is that in Ellis, and many other similar places, ambitious young children not only leave in droves, but are encouraged to do so.

This might be fine for the child who escapes. But the town they leave behind, as well as the kids who decide not to leave the small town, pay a price.

If these trends continue, small towns across the U.S. will slowly perish, leaving the few remaining residents with few economic and social opportunities.

It might seem strange for an immigrant to tackle the quintessentially American topic of small town life. But life in Ireland and Ellis, Iowa, are not so different.

“We’ve always had brain drain in Ireland. I’m part of that,” says Carr, who honed his observational skills as a kid, spending time with his father who worked in bookie shop.

“You’d see all walks of life, all manner of strange people” in the bookie shop, says Carr. “You have to watch what people do and see how they behave. In a bookie shop you have to be very sharp about who’s trying to pull the wool over your eyes.”

Carr himself was the first member of his family to complete college. He adds that the scholarship he was awarded after graduating from University College Dublin was available only to students interested in getting out of Ireland and traveling.

Carr eventually earned a Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Chicago. When he began practicing sociology, Carr’s work centered around crime, as well as the influences youth face as they come of age in the U.S.

That latter interest, combined with the “dumb luck” of having some folks fromIowa stay with neighbors in Ireland, eventually landed him the task of exploring how America’s small towns can be saved.

Carr adds that being an outsider helps when it comes to examining a small town.

“All good sociology is done when you are an outsider because you see things with a fresh set of eyes,” says Carr.

“I talk to people and say, ‘I’m just a dumb foreigner. Educate me.’ I’ll play the dumb mick for a little bit, and it works.”

Carr and his wife have been giving talks on this topic across the nation, no easy task for the parents of three young children, including a daughter born just a few weeks ago.

Among the ideas small tows need to pursue, Carr says, is a sensible immigration policy, which brings in new workers but does not exploit them or create tensions with native residents.

Up next for Carr is an intensive study of youth in Philadelphia (where he lives). Of particular interest to Carr is the so-called “stop snitching” phenomenon, in which witnesses refuse to cooperate with police.

No surprise there. Ireland has, in the past, had some issues with informers, hasn’t it?

Contact Tom Deignan at tomdeignan@verizon.net

Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan under fire in terror war

John Brennan grew up in New Jersey, the son of an Irish immigrant named Owen.
Brennan, who this week was dubbed President Obama’s “public face for counter terrorism policy,” was educated by the Jesuits, in high school as well as at Fordham University. Brennan has said a sense of public service was instilled in him, at home and at school, and thus he traveled widely and, after college, began a 30-year career at the CIA, working closely with Obama, as well as Presidents Bush and Clinton.

Despite this impressive resume -- Obama seriously considered naming Brennan CIA director following the presidential election -- it was not until the so-called underwear bombing of Christmas Day that the spotlight turned to Brennan.

The Obama administration -- and Brennan -- faced heat after 23 year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253. The administration had to ‘fess up that it had failed to connect the many dots which might have helped avoid the attempted bombing in the first place.

Just after New Year’s Day, Brennan was on all of the Sunday morning political talk shows defending the Obama administration’s terror policy, which was also slammed in the fall when Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan was charged with going on a rampage which left 13 people dead at Fort Hood, Texas.

The interesting thing about the heat facing Brennan is that it is coming from both sides of the political aisle.

The Republican-leaning Fox News crowd sees Obama and Brennan as soft. This charge was articulated controversially by former Vice President Dick Cheney, who emerged from his bunker recently to charge that the Democrats in general are flunking when it comes to national security.

“I'm very disappointed in the vice president's comments," Brennan himself declared on NBC's Meet the Press on January 3. "Either the vice president is willfully mischaracterizing this president's position -- both in terms of language he uses, and the actions he's taken -- or he's ignorant of the facts.

“In either case, it doesn't speak well of what the vice president's doing."
But even to some Obama fans, Brennan is viewed as a holdover who, a few years back, worked closely with former President George W. Bush.

Last Sunday’s cover story in The New York Times Magazine by Peter Baker, entitled “Stopping the Next One: Obama’s War Over Terror,” includes a lengthy analysis of Brennan’s career. The article said that in the wake of the Christmas Day terror attack, Brennan “has emerged … as the administration’s public face for counterterrorism policy,” and also explained how key figures in the Obama administration also fought the war on terror under President Bush.

“For all of his talk of change,” Baker writes, “Obama has kept a lot of veterans of the Bush administration in place.”

Several of these key figures have another thing in common -- they are Irish American. The article also cites Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen.

Last Friday, a critical report about the Fort Hood Massacre was released, forcing Mullen to acknowledge that he was concerned about “self-radicalization” in the military. He added, “There is clearly more and more of that going on, and how much of it we have in the military is something that we ought to really understand.”

Joining Mullen in taking a very close look at the Fort Hood report is Army Secretary John McHugh, another Irish American, as well as a former Republican congressman from upstate New York.

Finally, there is Denis McDonough, a Minnesota native and National Security Council chief of staff. Another member of Obama’s inner circle on counterterrorism, McDonough has been out front in recent days talking about the tragedy in Haiti.

This, of course, is how the news cycle works. A crisis is only a crisis until another one comes along.

The Times article opens with a scene featuring McDonough and Brennan briefing Obama about a “major terrorist plot to attack his inauguration.”

That plot, obviously, never materialized. But for Irish Americans such as McDonough and Brennan and McHugh and Mullen, there will surely always be another crisis around the corner.

New attack on Obama from 'birther' conservatives

He is a president with a father born in another country. Whispers, and occasionally shouts, arise that he is not a fit candidate for the White House.

He overcomes those obstacles, but for a core group of critics the charge that he is an unconstitutional president never goes away. They spend time trying to convince their fellow Americans that a man with no legal ties to the nation he governs is serving as commander in chief.

Barack Obama? Well, yes.

But this was also true for President Chester A. Arthur (pictured above), a man whose father was born in Ireland, and who some of Obama’s fiercest critics are now invoking.

“America’s Two Unconstitutional Presidents,” thunders the web site.

Familysecuritymatters.org, which notes that Arthur “was the son of an Irish immigrant …(and) was not constitutionally qualified for the office of either vice president or president, and set a precedent by which it would happen again.”

Meaning with our current president, Barack Obama.

As the glow has worn off the Obama presidency -- most recently, he’s taking heat over the attempted bombing on an airplane by a terrorist on Christmas Day -- the so-called “birther” movement has sustained surprising momentum.

Birthers basically believe Obama was not born an American citizen, so is therefore an illegitimate president. Obama’s father, of course, was born in Kenya. Obama’s much-discussed birth certificate says that the future president was born in Hawaii. However, many birthers simply don’t believe the document is real.

Believe it or not, Chester A. Arthur -- who served from 1881 to 1885, and is generally considered one of the most unmemorable presidents -- had his own pack of birthers nipping at his political tail.

The story began in 1797, when Arthur’s father, William, was born in Antrim. According to the Encyclopedia of the Irish in America (which does not even have a separate entry for Arthur) William settled in New York than moved to Vermont. He married in 1821 and had seven children and became a Baptist preacher known for fiery sermons and abolitionist leanings.

The family then moved around New York state throughout the 1830s and 1840s, before finally settling in Albany in the 1850s.

There are other accounts, however, which suggest that William Arthur left Ireland and settled, first, in Canada. Some, in fact, believe that’s where the future president was born, rather than n Vermont, as Arthur claims. Were he born in Canada, Arthur would be British, rather than American! (Interestingly, Obama’s father also was technically a British citizen -- sorry, subject -- since Kenya, at the time of Obama’s father’s birth, was also a British colony.)

Of course, the U.S. Constitution states that the president must be a “natural-born citizen.” Arthur’s critics argued that since his dad was Irish-born, and since the president may have been born in Canada, he did not technically become a U.S. citizen until William Arthur gained citizenship status in 1843.

Chester Arthur, by then, was already a teenager, and thus, not “natural born” on U.S. soil.

The heat on Arthur did not die down even after he was elected president. In fact, one critic, A.P. Hinman, wrote a scathing book not-so-subtly entitled How a Subject of the British Empire Became President of the Unites States.

Either way, Arthur only served one term as president, and only then because he was vice president when James Garfield was assassinated. History has been kind to Arthur only insofar as it has largely forgotten him.

For the record, John Dumville, who runs historic sites in Vermont, where the (alleged) Arthur birth home is located, recently said this to the Associated Press about rumors that Arthur was not eligible for the presidency: "It's an old rumor that won't die, political slander.”

This also seems to be the case with Obama’s conspiracy critics, who seem to grow more vociferous as the president’s poll ratings drop.

Perhaps we should all calm down. Obama may end up a president as memorable as Chester A. Arthur.

(Contact Tom Deignan at tomdeignan@earthlink.net)

What has 2010 in store for Irish America?

It’s been another wild year for Irish Americans, but what will next year bring?

Sit back as we gaze into the crystal ball. What will each month of 2010 bring?

JANUARY: Following the success of their tacky new reality show Jersey Shore, in which Italian Americans proudly act like buffoons and call themselves “guidos,” MTV announces its next reality venture -- Irish Riviera. That’s right, MTV will throw a bunch of Irish lads and lassies into a Rockaway Beach bungalow while we sit back and watch the fireworks.
The guys and gals philosophize about religion, Northern Ireland and whether or not they will get a “Mick” or “donkey” tattoo, following a breakfast of Irish car bombs.

FEBRUARY: Susan Boyle releases an album of Valentine’s Day love songs.
Executives from her record label declare that Boyle will single-handedly save the recording industry.
They also announce that Boyle will be releasing an album of St. Patrick’s Day favorites in March, and Easter classics in April.

MARCH: The “St. Patrick’s Day Riots” of 2010 break out in Hollywood. American actors are angry that advertising executives have decided to actually use actors from Ireland to do commercial voiceovers.
“Who knew there were so many folks born speaking with that cool accent?” one commercial director is quoted as saying. “We’ve been killing ourselves all these years trying to match the realism and authenticity of The Quiet Man.”
Also in time for St. Patrick’s Day, despite protests from all corners of the Irish diaspora, MTV unveils two more Irish-themed reality shows.
First there’s Natives vs. Narrowbacks, in which hip Irish immigrants live side by side with the not-so-hip children of Irish immigrants.
Then there’s Real World: Belfast, in which former paramilitaries from both sides of the Northern divide are now charged with the task of running a chip shop in a Polish-Nigerian enclave.

APRIL: Susan Boyle cancels the release of her Easter album. Rumors swirl that she needs radical throat surgery. Record label executives deny the rumors, and announce that Boyle will be releasing albums of classic songs about Memorial Day, Father’s Day and the Fourth of July.

MAY: Despite a letter of concern from the Pope and numerous resignations, the Catholic Church crisis will not end in Ireland. Converts to the church of Ireland, Judaism and the newly-formed Cathedral of Sinead rise steeply.
The Pope writes another letter of concern.

JUNE: Not content with writing a column for The New York Times and working on a freelance basis as world savior, Bono takes a leave of absence from U2.
U.S.-Irish tensions rise when President Barack Obama and Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen offer the singing superstar cabinet-level positions. In a wide-ranging interview with 60 Minutes, Bono refuses to rule out any offers.

JULY: Seamus Heaney and Eminem release a spoken word CD entitled White Lightning.
AUGUST: Susan Boyle finally emerges with a healthy singing voice. Executives at her record label try to convince her to record an album of American folk classics.
Boyle, instead, performs a racy duet alongside Lady GaGa on MTV.

SEPTEMBER: Having made movies about the wrongfully imprisoned, a tortured artist who must eat with his feet and, most recently, two brothers who torture themselves because of a domineering father, Irish cinema genius Jim Sheridan announces his next project -- a 12-hour documentary about one, small cemetery outside of Dublin. The only script for the project will be random excerpts from the plays of Samuel Beckett.

OCTOBER: Bono engineers a coup, is named Irish prime minister.

NOVEMBER: Colin Farrell appears in a movie people have heard of.

DECEMBER: Irish church leaders plead with the Pope. They say that only a papal visit to Ireland will help heal the wounds left in the wake of the sex abuse scandal.
Pope writes another letter, promises to get back to them in 2011.

Happy New Year!